Thursday, January 27, 2011

Joan's bagels on sale online! (and various Atlanta tid bits)

Those of you who love Joan's GF Greatbakes bagels as much as I do might want to check out their 15% off bagel sale online! If you live in the Atlanta area, you can buy Joan's bagels (and several other exceptional products from the line) at Return to Eden. If you need to order online, consider asking a gluten-free friend to order with you as that will allow you to save on the shipping cost. I've ordered food online with as many as four other people (at once) which makes a huge different on the freight costs for each person who orders. Joan's bagel sales is good through 2-18. Use the code Feb211EMUF (online orders only) for the discount.  

While shopping at Return to Eden this past Sunday afternoon (after seeing the wonderful Toulouse-Lautrec & Friends exhibit at the HIGH), I found a couple of things worth mentioning. The dinner rolls from Olde World Artisan Bread Co. (Atlanta based company/no website) were on the shelf stable bread rack. The items have been there for a while, but I'd not tried them before. I'll review the rolls next week on Celiac-Disease.com, but I passed on the bread loaf as I'm happy with other breads that cost less. However, I've heard from others that the bread is exceptional. The owner of Olde World Artisan Bread Co. will be at Return to Eden this Saturday, Jan. 29th, from 1 - 3 pm. If you like breads made with healthy grains like aramanth, millet, quinoa, teff and sorghum, you might want to check out this product line.

Also, I finally picked up some Pure Knead hamburger buns (original version) at R2E. If you like the buns served at Yeah! Burger, you might want to check the buns out yourself. The amazing buns do NOT contain rice flour which I personally think explains the magic of the product line. The whole grain buns from the line are my favorite ever. Currently, the only way to enjoy them is to dine at Farm Burger in Decatur, but that will be changing very soon!
 
 *Above photo courtesy of Joan's GF Greatbakes.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Surviving a snowstorm no problem for the gluten-free set

Atlanta has not had an snow/ice storm that lasted this long in probably twenty years. Actually, we've been very lucky in terms of power outages and this time around we didn't have spend the night in a  hotel to get warm. We didn't need to host friends and family for overnight stays because our power was on and theirs was not.

As usual, days before the supposed snow was to arrive, the local TV news folks warned us to stock up on food and supplies like prescriptions medicines. And as usual, we didn't really get too worried because well over half the time such warning are given, nothing particularly dramatic happens. Somehow the snow never comes or the ice - or whatever. Even so, I decided to go to Publix with my husband to stock up on groceries during the weekend. I wanted to make sure we had plenty of food (and that nothing on the shopping list was overlooked by mistake) so we'd have plenty to eat for the two days we were supposed to be snowed in. We were shopping for the week actually, so we'd be good to go for longer than that.

It started snowing at our house on Sunday night around 9:30 and didn't stop until about 11:30. It was beautiful and the flakes were huge. I'm not sure I've seen such lovely snow before. The back deck, yard and even the street were quickly blanketed in powdery white snow. The next morning the snow was still there and the entire city was basically shut down due to dangerous road conditions. My husband's employer even closed for the day. We stayed warm and took photos of the snow covered house and yard. We were able to work from home, but I wondered when we'd be able to drive out of our neighborhood. The snow turned to ice by the end of the day and the huge hill on our street is not easy to navigate in such conditions.

When Tuesday arrived the roads were worse, the sun never came out and we could not get out of our neighborhood unless we walked. The frigid temps kept me inside where it was warm and dry. By today, I was feeling cooped up and wanted to get out of the house. The ice on our road started to melt in places so we called Publix to make sure they were open. I was told the store would be open at least until 4 pm. We bundled up in the warmest clothes we own and carefully made the trek to Publix.

We actually needed milk because somehow we didn't buy any during our snowstorm shopping trip. Otherwise, we just picked up things we wanted. There is so much food in my freezers that we could eat for quite a while without worrying about going hungry. Of course, some of it is gluten-free bread type items - or cupcakes - or muffins. All things I've resolved to eat less of this year.   

It occurred to me that at least in my case, I always have plenty of food in my home. I might run out of fresh fruits and veggies, but I'm not going to run out of shelf stable or frozen foods for quite a while when stranded due to bad weather. Before I went gluten-free, we didn't keep a lot of food in our pantry. My husband did almost all the shopping then and he's a bit of a minimalist. Once I started the gluten-free diet, I decided I needed to have more food in the house so for the past five years, I've had it. This is probably the first time since then that it made sense to have so much food here, but in any case, we haven't gone hungry and have not had to overload on carbs either.

We'll hopefully get back to normal on Saturday when warm temps melt the lovely snow and ugly slush away. This Florida gal can do without below freezing temps, no doubt! For those of you who can get out and about where there is a Fresh 2 Order location, they have a coupon (sent to their website subscribers) for 50% off a meal there through Sunday, the 16th. Their pork and sweet mashed potatoes are both on their gluten-free menu and quite delicious!


         

   

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Out with the old - in with the new

Belated Happy New Year Everyone! We took a much needed break during Christmas, including a break from being connected. First, we went to FL where we found a pizza place that sells a bucket of five Bard's Tale beers for only $8! Seriously - how is this possible? Next up was a visit to Savannah for some r&r and fabulous gluten-free meals. I was doing a travel feature for Delight gluten-free Magazine and even though we skipped The Lady & Sons (which we did gluten style before Paula Deen was famous outside Savannah), there were more places to eat down there than we could fit in.

If you're wondering what I'm referring to with the title of this post, I'm speaking of gluten-free friendly places that went out of business in Atlanta in 2010 and what's on the horizon here in 2011. Roy's Restaurant closed it's doors in Buckhead, but there are several other locations outside GA. Roy's now offers a seasonal gourmet gluten-free menu highlighting Hawaiian Asian fusion fare. Their chocolate souffle is gluten-free and one of the best desserts I've ever had. Thankfully, you can find the recipe for it on Roy's website.

Another gluten-free casualty in 2010 is Shaun's Restaurant which was located in the Inman Park area. The food was fabulous and Shaun hosted celiac dinners one weekend a month and always accommodated gluten-free diners. The upside is that Shaun opened two locations of Yeah! Burger where you can have a fabulous gluten-free bun, French fries and onion rings. The burger meat is grass-fed and fabulous. You can even get a hot dog with a gluten-free bun there and Bard's Tale beer. Pure Knead's fabulous buns are featured at YB and according to the press release the company recently sent out, the hamburger buns are now available at Return to Eden.

The closing that affects me most personally is Bugaboo Creek in Duluth. It was oddly the only place I liked to go for steak. Since I don't eat a lot of steak, I didn't patronize this place much and I guess others didn't either.

As far as what's new for 2011 (or at least a little bit of it) -


  • Pure Knead will soon open a retail space in Decatur where you can pick up orders a couple of days a week. They will have gluten-free cupcakes and other things available to purchase without pre-ordering. 


  • Fresh 2 Order promises they are working on adding gluten-free soups to their gluten-free menu. I just hope they're available before the warm weather arrives.    


  • Weight Watchers seems to know what gluten-free means now which is better than most of their competitors can say. Read about that next week on Celiac-Disease.com


Last but far from least, the best news of all for me is that I'm now an Advertising Associate for Delight gluten-free magazine. I'm going to do my best to keep up this blog going (and improve it in 2011) even though I now have a VERY full work plate. Finally! 2011 is already looking like a wonderful year for this gluten-free gal and again, I'd like to thank my readers and Twitter followers for all your support over the last year. While you're not likely to find me tweeting much going forward (due to newly revamped priorities), I appreciate my followers there nonetheless!








          

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